DSCR loans on a Florida rental

A DSCR loan is underwritten on what the property earns rather than on the borrower's pay stubs, so almost everything that separates one deal from another is the property and the state it sits in. Florida moves the arithmetic in two places that a spreadsheet built anywhere else will get wrong, and both of them land on the closing statement rather than in the loan file.

Florida charges twice at the closing table

Most states levy one state charge when a property changes hands. Florida levies two, and they are assessed on different amounts. The documentary stamp tax falls on the deed and is charged on the consideration, at Florida charges documentary stamp tax on the deed at 70 cents per $100 of consideration, documentary stamp tax on the recorded mortgage at 35 cents per $100 of the debt, and a one-time intangible tax of 2 mills on the note secured by that mortgage. Recording is $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each additional page. Miami-Dade is the one exception on the deed side: 60 cents per $100 plus a 45-cent surtax that is not charged on a document transferring only a single-family dwelling. (Florida Department of Revenue, Florida Documentary Stamp Tax; ss. 201.02, 201.031, 201.08, 199.133 and 28.24(13), Fla. Stat., read 25 August 2026). The non-recurring intangible tax is separate: it falls on the new note and is charged on the amount secured, at 0.2% (s. 199.133(1), Fla. Stat.; Miami-Dade Clerk of the Courts, Official Records, read 25 August 2026). An investor who compares a Florida purchase against one in a single-charge state and carries across a single line for "transfer tax" understates the cash it takes to close, every time.

The seller's tax bill is not your tax bill

This is the Florida-specific trap in a rental underwrite, and it is a large one. The homestead exemption takes $50,000 (Florida Department of Revenue, Property Tax Information for Homestead Exemption (PT-113, R. 08/25); s. 196.031, Fla. Stat., read 25 August 2026) off the taxable value of a property whose owner occupies it as a permanent residence. The Save Our Homes provision then caps how fast the assessment on that homesteaded property may rise, at 3% (Fla. Const. Art. VII s. 4(d)(1); s. 193.155(1), Fla. Stat.; Florida Department of Revenue guide PT-112, read 25 August 2026) a year. A house held for a long stretch by a resident owner can therefore sit far below what it would sell for today, and the tax line on the current bill reflects that history rather than the price you are about to pay for it.

Neither of those follows the address. Both attach to the owner and to their occupancy, and the exemption is something a resident has to file for, on its own clock. March 1 of the tax year. The applicant must hold title and occupy the home as a permanent residence on 1 January of that year, and files Form DR-501 with the county property appraiser. (Florida Department of Revenue, Property Tax Information for Homestead Exemption (PT-113, R. 08/25); s. 196.011, Fla. Stat., read 25 August 2026) A property bought to rent is not homesteaded by its buyer, so a debt-service calculation that lifts the property tax figure straight off the seller's bill is running on a number that belongs to somebody else's circumstances. On a long-held Florida house the gap between the two is not a rounding difference, and it lands entirely on the expense side of the ratio a lender is about to measure.

What this page will not do is hand you a Florida average to use instead. Two incompatible definitions of an effective property tax rate are in circulation, one measuring tax against assessed value and the other measuring a median bill against a median sale price, and they do not describe the same thing. The Florida figure this site holds is on the definition we do not publish, so this page carries no state average at all. The county property appraiser will tell you what the property would be assessed at without a homestead on it, and that is the number to underwrite against.

Loan size, and the one county that is different

A DSCR loan is not a conforming loan and is not bound by the agency limit, but that limit is still the first figure most investors reach for when they size a deal, so it is worth being exact about where it sits. In nearly every Florida county the one-unit conforming limit is $832,750 (Federal Housing Finance Agency, Full County Loan Limit List 2026 (HERA-based, final, flat file), read 25 August 2026). Monroe County, which is the Keys, carries the state's only high-cost designation, at Monroe County is the only Florida county above the baseline: $990,150 for one unit, $1,267,600 for two, $1,532,200 for three and $1,904,150 for four. The other 66 counties are all at the $832,750 baseline. (Federal Housing Finance Agency, Full County Loan Limit List 2026 (HERA-based, final, flat file), read 25 August 2026). That designation is redrawn annually and the county that qualifies can change as well as the amount, so it is worth looking up rather than remembering.

Who supervises the lender

The office that oversees this side of the business in the state is the The Office of Financial Regulation, an office of the Financial Services Commission, licenses loan originators, mortgage brokers and mortgage lenders under Chapter 494 of the Florida Statutes, titled Loan Originators and Mortgage Brokers. (s. 494.001(29) and s. 494.0025(1)-(3), Fla. Stat.; s. 20.121(3)(a)2, Fla. Stat., read 25 August 2026). That is where a complaint goes and where a broker's standing can be checked. BEDRWay is not a lender and does not originate anywhere; what happens when you send us a file is that it goes in front of a mortgage professional authorised to work in your state.

What this page does not tell you

Two things an investor asks about Florida are missing here on purpose, because nothing we hold answers them and a plausible guess is worse than a gap. What it costs to insure a Florida rental is the larger of the two, and it is the largest line in the operating side of the ratio a lender is about to measure. No Florida agency publishes a premium figure on any basis that would survive comparison with another state, and the bands in circulation carry no publisher at all, so this page carries none either. The other is a statewide property tax figure a reader could apply to their own address: the Department of Revenue publishes a total millage row for each county and no statewide row anywhere, so any statewide Florida rate you meet, here or elsewhere, is somebody's weighted computation rather than a published number. Both are recorded as unsourced in the data behind this page rather than quietly filled in.